Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
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Why Show Boat?<br />
<strong>The</strong> selection <strong>of</strong> Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s musical, Show Boat<br />
(1927), as a gender-based performance practice model was determined for several prac-<br />
tical reasons. <strong>The</strong> first, and most obvious, reason is that this show is the progenitor <strong>of</strong> all<br />
subsequent American productions. Its premiere in December 1927 was the debut <strong>of</strong> a<br />
new form <strong>of</strong> dramatic and musical collaboration, a mature integration <strong>of</strong> plot, libretto,<br />
music, and stage action. It is the original book musical. 11 Show Boat was unusual for its<br />
time as a serious musical drama in the midst <strong>of</strong> frivolous musical comedies that typified<br />
the carefree, urbane attitude <strong>of</strong> the 1920s. <strong>The</strong> 1927 Broadway season was a lucrative<br />
one with fifty new musicals produced. <strong>The</strong>se included the musical comedy hits <strong>of</strong> Irving<br />
Berlin’s Ziegfeld Follies <strong>of</strong> 1927; George and Ira Gershwin’s successful Funny Face;<br />
Vincent Youmans’ Hit the Deck; as well as Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s A<br />
Connecticut Yankee. <strong>The</strong>se shows introduced enduring Broadway and jazz standards,<br />
including Kern’s “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ ‘dat Man,” Gershwin’s “‘S<br />
Wonderful,” and Rodgers and Hart’s “Thou Swell.” Viewed from a twenty-first century<br />
perspective, each <strong>of</strong> these shows provides a cultural snapshot <strong>of</strong> current fashions, humor,<br />
political thought, social mores, gender roles, and prejudices that represent urban New<br />
York City society in the late 1920s. Show Boat, however, stands out as an amalgamation<br />
<strong>of</strong> turn-<strong>of</strong>-the-century American society, within and without the New York bubble. It is<br />
the epitome <strong>of</strong> Ge<strong>of</strong>frey Block’s definition for a musical worthy <strong>of</strong> canonization:<br />
11 Show Boat’s claim to pre-eminence as the first modern American musical versus Hammerstein’s<br />
later show with Richard Rodgers, Oklahoma! (1945), is still strongly debated among musical theatre critics<br />
and historians. However, it is included (sometimes as an exception) as the first American musical in every<br />
canon <strong>of</strong> classic musicals.<br />
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